Release notes

Last update: Oct. 2017

These release notes concern maintenance operations on SoDa on MINES ParisTech servers, i.e. impacts both www.soda-is.com and www.soda-pro.com for a few hours. Same maintenance operations are then carried out on the mirror website afterwards (pro.soda-is.com and www.tsv.soda-pro.com). Users who purchased an annual subscription to access the HelioClim-3 database are informed by email a few days before, and also as soon as the SoDa Service is back to normal.

Since NCEP updated GFS on 2017-07-19, GFS web service hosted by SoDa returned invalid snow depth values. This is fixed.

If possible, users should redo all GFS requests done since 2017-07-19

#552

Uniform handling of monthly requests when start and end dates do not define entire months

The handling of monthly requests was not uniform when start and end dates do not define entire months. We modified Helioclim-3, Helioclim-1, MERRA-2 and GFS to enlarge partial months requests to entire months. For request overlapping current month, McClear and CAMS Radiation gave "nan" values. So for coherency purpose, the monthly requests are first cropped to full month, and the request is then run with those cropped months.

2017-10-11 Release

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#448

New version 3 of CAMS Radiation Service

CAMS Radiation Service features a new version 3 with:

McClear clear sky model v3 (see #494 below)

An empirical bias correction algorithm aiming at reducing errors in irradiation and clearness index. It has been created by fitting functions onto measurements performed at several BSRN stations taken globally.

If possible, users should redo all past CAMS Radiation Service requests to enjoy the improvements of v3.

#494

New version 3 of CAMS McClear Service

McClear clear sky model features a new version 3 that fixes discontinuities in space and time (during day as well as seasons), uses less memory and reduces (a little) the error when compared to ground measurements.

In Feb. 2016, the NASA stopped updating MERRA-1 and replaced it by MERRA-2. SoDa maintained MERRA-1 web service merra_request.php during the transition period. This period is now over. Please upgrade to MERRA-2!

McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 services use a meteorological model from ECMWF to describe the atmosphere. This model is updated daily. This update has been broken from 2017-08-27 to 2017-08-30.

Users of McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 services that ran requests from 2017-08-27 to 2017-08-30 should redo them

#496

Fixed bug #496 "Timeout is too short on pro.soda-is.com"

We increased the Apache timeout of SoDa server pro.soda-is.com that was shorter than www.soda-is.com timeout (15 minutes)

2017-07-31 Release

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#458

"HC3 + MERRA-2 Archives" web service is replaced by an enhanced version "HC3+Meteo Archives"

"HC3 + MERRA-2 Archives" web service is replaced by an enhanced version "HC3 + Meteo Archives" = HelioClim-3 irradiation + meteorological data from MERRA-2 (NASA) and GFS (NCEP). This service is available up to d-1 for HC3v4 and up to d-2 for HC3v5.

This service is available by selecting the "Add Meteo Data" option in HelioClim-3 Archives web forms:

2017-05-09 Release

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#458

"HC3 + MERRA 2" web service

Introduction of a new "HC3 + MERRA 2" web service that lets you get Helioclim-3 and meteo data in one request. This first version is only available via machine 2 machine (wget) requests. Please contact support-sales@soda-is.com if you are interested.

No impact to existing code.

HC3 users must adapt their code to use the new "HC3 + MERRA 2" web service.

#159

HC3 Unified Format

Introduction of a new HC3 request output format named "HC3 Unified Format" independant of the time step.

TheGlobal Forecast System archives 0.5° Web service, available worldwide, delivers time series of Temperature (at 2 m), Relative Humidity (at 2 m), Pressure (at 2 m), Wind speed and direction (at 10 m), with a original time step of 3 hours and on a grid of 0.5° (Approx. 50 km). Data are available since March 2004 up to day-1.Be careful: the service is not yet availablehttp://www.soda-pro.com/web-services/meteo-data/gfs-archives

2016-06-23 Release

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#369

Upgrade of the CAMS real-time data assimilation and forecasting system on 2016-06-21

The CAMS numeric weather model that provides inputs to McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 irradiation models has been improved on 2016-06-21. The new model uses a 0.4 degree grid (about 40 km) and computes now hourly previsions twice a day.

2015-12-15 Release

Upgrade of the CAMS real-time data assimilation and forecasting system on 2015-11-27

The CAMS numeric weather model that provides inputs to McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 irradiation models has been improved on 2015-11-27. The new model uses a 0.75 degree grid (about 75 km) and computes now hourly previsions.

No impact of the model change (see next line, though)

#301

Download errors after CAMS system upgrade on 2015-11-27

After CAMS system upgrade on 2015-11-27, we encountered download errors (due to a miscommunication with CAMS team). We implemented a hack on 2015-12-09 to compute McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 using a persistence algorithm on McClear clear sky irradiation. CAMS upgrade was properly implemented on 2015-12-15.

If possible, users should redo McClear, CAMS Radiation and Helioclim-3 version 5 requests computed from 2015-11-27 to 2015-12-15